


wanderlust

by kuro49



Category: Carol (2015)
Genre: Domestic Bliss, F/F, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-06
Updated: 2016-11-06
Packaged: 2018-08-29 11:44:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8488045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuro49/pseuds/kuro49
Summary: And you can drive forever but the road leads home.
(Or leading up to the New Years after their first and all the ones after.)





	

**Author's Note:**

> this is almost a year too late but smother me in happy domestic lesbians in love.

It is December of 1952 when she meets her in Manhattan.

She comes to her from New Jersey, from a big and empty house in the country. If Therese Belivet understood love then, she is sure it is not that even when she closes her fingers around those gloves, the leather soft and well cared for in her grasp. The thought of what her bare skin must feel like does not cross her mind. She still makes sure they go back to her.

 

If Therese understood a thing then, love might just be this: There is not much room.

There is not much warmth either in the front seats of their car. Pulled to the side of an empty stretch of road heading south, she is draped over her in her fur still, the leather of her gloves drawing her chin to tip back so she can drag the edge of her teeth against her throat. A soft, easy gasp comes.

A softer, easier murmur of an admission of the very same old thing follows: “I love you too.”

She is too close and maybe that is the point she is trying to make. She cannot get closer. When she settles inside this skin, she intends to stay. The snow falls in flurries while she finds her pulse beneath her lips. She draws her up, she meets her on a sigh of nothing but want.

It tastes of New Year's Eve, it tastes of their very first kiss.

 

“I believe.”

Carol starts with contemplation, looking up from the middle of the pages of the novel held in her hands. She is sitting at one end of the sofa with her legs resting along the length of it, her ankles crossed at the opposite end. And her voice, like always, is soft and sweet and still the loveliest thing Therese thinks she will hear in this life.

“A road trip is in order.”

Outside, it is not falling the first snow. It is not even the second or the third or the fourth of this winter. Christmas has just gone by, and with that, Harge gets Rindy back.

Therese glances up at her, a pause in her sorting from her spot on the carpet by Carol’s outstretched legs. The spread of photographs around her like a collage she is still thinking up a theme for (and _Carol_ is hardly one she can use again and again even if she has rolls upon rolls of films of her).

“Will this be tradition for us?”

Carol is smiling at her question, and it is a sly one. Therese loves those best, but she is hardly a fair judge.

“Are you saying 'no'?”

Therese sits up on her knees and turns to face Carol properly, the laughter dissolving on her tongue to leave her mouth waning into a smile that matches Carol’s own.

“Have I ever said 'no' to you?”

Therese stretches an arm against the edge of the sofa to brush her fingers just against those crossed ankles while Carol reaches out to tuck a lock of brown behind her ear.

She loses her spot on the page while she loses track of everything else.

 

They are at the cusp of the New Year when she kisses her in Waterloo, Iowa.

Her mouth is warm.

Therese doesn’t pull away when Carol dips her head to lean over her. The blonde of her hair brushing the shell of her ear, the back of her fingers moving up the length of her arm, elbow to the slope of her shoulder. Higher, then higher, until she is tilting the line of her jaw to her like the tipping arch of sunflower stems towards the sun.

Her skin is hot beneath her palms, it is a fever she has no intention of breaking.

 

She is packing when she finds a shoebox of her pictures.

Carol is reaching into the back of their shared closet for the thick wool sweater that she wants to wear for their trip. Her hands touch the edge of a cardboard box and she remembers she can still be surprised.

Carol is not one to pry.

But curiosity is another thing altogether.

It is there, by their bed with the closet doors still wide open behind her, that Therese finds her. The sweater has long been forgotten.

Maybe she should be embarrassed, but she is also a little bit proud when she walks over to where Carol stands.

“Use what feels right.” Therese starts, taking the photograph from Carol’s hand and drops it back into the box. It lands face up, of sunlight catching against the wooden floorboards of their home. She is not repeating these words to her for anything less than the very fact that she is quoting her from the heart. “Throw away the rest.”

Carol picks it up by the corner again and sees the unmistakable silhouette of herself like line art drawn into the floors of their kitchen by the sun. (The one underneath is of the expanse of her back, the next one is the downward tilt of her head as she is slipping into her coat by the door in a rush, another of her in profile and her in motion and her and her, and all of it, _her_ placed here for safe keeping.)

“You can hardly keep all of these, Therese.”

Carol puts it back, and if there is colour to her face, she thinks she can hold the brush of Therese’s lips across her cheek responsible when she leans in to say: “You should buy more shoes then.”

Carol doesn’t let her leave with just that, not when she can turn her around with a gentle touch to the inside of Therese’s wrist, turns her back around to kiss her full on the mouth. And she can be shy, but she can also be happy.

Now the colour is shared between them both.

 

Carol is at the stove and Therese is at the table, setting their cutlery down for the plates of breakfast Carol will be bringing over.

The sun is coming through the windows and the blinds are lowered to keep the brightness from reflecting off of the floor of their kitchen. She doesn’t think about Richard a lot, or at all really since she has last seen him but she remembers what she said, that very last time. Therese has never asked Richard for anything, and that is the problem. She never wanted a thing from him.

If she knew what she knows now, it is this: She wants everything from her.

She is not tentative when she finally speaks.

“I want to go south this time.”

Carol’s smile turns brilliant and Therese's index finger flickers down on reflex even if her camera is sitting on the table at the side of their bed.

 

It is 1953 when she meets her again.

They are sitting in the lounge of the Ritz Tower Hotel. Running parallel and to the west of where they are seated, there is an apartment on Madison Avenue that is just big enough for two under Carol Aird’s name. The Oak Room finds them coming full circle, she brings her home.


End file.
